


hey batter batter

by fairbanks



Series: goretober 2018 [5]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Goretober 2018, Gun Violence, all of these are i'm sorry, daisy is still her own warning right, general violence, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 19:21:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16204013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairbanks/pseuds/fairbanks
Summary: Melanie reminds Daisy of something.





	hey batter batter

  1.   **hey batter batter**



 

It’s an awkward drive but most are these days. Awkwardness rolls over Daisy like water sliding off her smooth and polished surfaces, pools uselessly at her feet. She doesn’t care, she didn’t before the disaster of the Institute and doesn’t now after it. (Basira is never awkward around her. All of Basira’s silences are sliding into a warm bath, water that seeps into her polished surfaces.)

 

Melanie isn’t awkward, per say, even if the silence between them feels it. Melanie, if Daisy had to describe it, is the sound of teeth grinding and the stretch of of a rubber band until it snaps. She’s an anger that wants to shatter glass but can’t afford to replace the window.

 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” she tells Daisy, eyes on the road. “Basira asked you to do this, right? Because I’m so fragile right now.”

 

“Yeah,” answers Daisy, sees no need to play soft with the fragile, ground glass girl. A flicker of surprise flits across Melanie’s simmering until it settles again, hot irritation. Tick tick tick. It reminds Daisy of something.

 

“I don’t-”

 

“Don’t care,” Daisy interrupts. “Basira asked, I said yes, here we are. When it’s done you can tell her off, but until then spare us both the whining about how in control you are and drive.”

 

Melanie’s silent, and Daisy wonders if she threw a match into a powder keg. If an explosion is coming it’s a creeping one, a wick burning down. When Melanie finally speaks it’s to say, “And you’d do anything for Basira, wouldn’t you?” with a cruelty that snaps at throats.

 

Daisy’s almost impressed. Look for the weak spot, jab, test the give. Calculated, clever Melanie King in all her wild grief.

 

(“I’m worried about her,” Basira admits, holding the coffee Daisy brought her.

 

“You can’t fix it or her. Don’t waste too much energy before the real fight goes down.”

 

Most would find offense but Basira just nods, drinks her coffee, gets where Daisy is coming from. What she’s getting at. “Go with her tomorrow? Martin says the place could be dangerous, if those circus lot were around.”

 

“Fine,” Daisy sighs, if only for the chance to kill something worth the hunt.)

 

The rest of the ride passes in silence, probably best given the powderkeg of violence between them.

 

The building is an old burnt out thing, probably full of squatters if Daisy had to guess anything other than sawdust mannequins. The fire is what tipped them off apparently, some connection with more monsters that liked to burn down lovely things and were happy to do so for the Stranger. This was a fine, historical building once, so she heard. A real tragedy.

 

The fire was put out too quickly to destroy the lower floor in its entirety, so there they were, sifting through garbage. Daisy sweeps the place, scares away a vagrant and leans against a wall as Melanie looked through refuse and soot.

 

“Just going to stand there?”

 

“Yup,” answers Daisy.

 

Melanie doesn’t even bother keeping her muttering under her breath. “Useless _ass._ ”

 

Daisy would find the whole display far more amusing if the back of her teeth didn’t ache with _something’s wrong._

 

With her back to the wall she can survey the area, see the whole of the entrances and exits from the dilapidated room. There’s sooty footprints trampled through, unalarming in all ways except for how one pair scratches too long in its stride, too far apart, too curved and erratic. They’re _wrong_ and Daisy knows the scent of uncanny puppets on cut strings now, so as Melanie kicks around rubbish Daisy follows the wrong footsteps with her gaze, down the side of the room to the door, not through the door though. They stop before it.

 

She glances up at a hole in the ceiling and sees a pale proximity of a face staring back at her.

 

Her hand is immediately on her gun, whipped out with no warning cry or shot. Most of her shots are meant to kill these days, those that aren’t devoted to hurting, slowing down, maiming. An inhuman shriek fills the air, tells her she hit her mark in the dark hole of the ceiling. The scream sounds more like the splintering creak of old wood than human and she doesn’t care. She shoots again as Melanie cries out.

 

“What’s-” Melanie starts, only to choke on her words when a too long creature drops with something Daisy wouldn’t call grace. Still it lands on its feet, scuttles and squirms with appendages too slim and then too bulky in turn, mismatched and farcical. Its face, or what covers it, is the smiling wax head of the Queen, molded around the skull.

 

A bullet hole is at her temple, the wax melted slightly around it. “ _Oh no,_ ” the jittering thing says, a falsetto proximity to an English accent. “ _Not ready yet, not ready yet, please come back later, thank you for your patronage._ ”

 

“‘The _hell_ ,” Melanie snaps, though Daisy doesn’t pay her any mind. Her focus is set, shooting another two rounds in the thing’s torso in hopes it would be more effective than a headshot.

 

It sets the creature screaming again, a steadily rising tone that never actually got any higher. Daisy’s mind is on new tactics, blades or fire or crushing whatever it calls a windpipe, when her Majesty darts forward, too fast for a retaliating shot. It misses cracking her skull with its arm but it catches her ribs, sends her flying to the ground. She can hear Melanie yelling something as she skids and stops, side on fire, breath lost.

 

Time’s funny after that, the way Daisy feels her lips pull in a smile as she rushes the thing and shoots it point blank under the chin. Wax goes flying, the Queen’s static smile contorts gruesomely with the damage and Daisy can taste blood in the water now.

 

It slams her on her back and she struggles to free an arm, to get her gun just one more time on that wounded and oozing skull. The clear liquid from the shot smells like turpentine and makes her gag like fumes. As it lowers its head closer and closer still she snarls, ready to bite and _rip_ anything she can get her teeth on.

 

And that’s when the wax head of the Queen ricocheted to the side with a resounding crack.

 

“Hey, this is what you wanted?” Melanie’s shrieking, and Daisy can see a dirty wooden plank in her hand, debris from the house. She winds up and slams the wood into the creature’s head again and the creature falls to the side, the rising tone that was it’s scream scratching down the middle like a broke record. It’s off Daisy but Melanie doesn’t stop. In fact she doesn’t seem to care.

 

“This? This house? This garbage? This goose chase?” Melanie screams, hits the thing again, then again, over and over until the wax is a formless mass around a cracked skull, split like an egg and drippin matter that didn’t make up any internal workings Daisy’s seen. Even when the creature no longer twitches Melanie keeps hitting, loud thuds becoming wet smacks, until the the wood splinters and breaks in half, until Melanie’s words are just formless screams, chest deep rage.

 

When the plank breaks Daisy moves, grabs Melanie’s arm only for the woman to round on her and slam one of the broken halves against her shoulder. It isn’t a mistake, Melanie’s wild eyed violence is no mistake, and Daisy knows in a split moment Melanie King would split her head on that ground the same way. Melanie wouldn’t bat an eye as she died.

 

Melanie King is also a former Youtuber turned archival assistant, so grappling her through the pain isn’t a particularly difficult challenge. Melanie fights though, a formless violence taken shape in every desperate strike. In the back of Daisy’s mind she thinks again _I’ve seen this_. In the front her animal instinct is snarling and shoving a knee against Melanie’s chest until she can’t breath.

 

With her wrists pinned on either side of her head by Daisy’s merciless grip there isn’t much Melanie can do but thrash and yell, losing what little air she had. In only a few moments she closes her eyes, moves her mouth to form words she doesn’t have the breath to say. She’s down, Daisy thinks, from whatever possessed her. She looks pretty when her lips start tinting pale like that, face red.

 

Daisy moves her knee, lets her breath, and doesn’t bother pretending to herself that she didn’t consider watching her die.

 

-

 

The ride home is Daisy at the wheel, Melanie curled into the passenger seat like she wanted to absorb every part of herself, consolidate it into something sturdier. Neither of them bothered looking around for more clues, and Daisy made sure the rest of the building burned with the creature’s corpse.

 

“I’m not giving a statement,” Melanie says, hoarse.

 

“Don’t care if you do or not,” Daisy shrugs, and Melanie thunks her temple against the window like she isn’t sure what to do with that. For a moment Daisy considers saying nothing, but Melanie looks pretty like this too, bloodless and drawn and still so viscous under the skin. “You’re not fragile. Whatever was fragile about you broke years ago, I’d imagine. What you are is dangerous.”

 

She can feel Melanie’s eyes on her, probing and sharp. She continues, “And if you kill Bouchard before I do I’ll be pissed.”

 

Melanie laughs, a jagged thing, and in the reflection of the window Daisy watches her lick her lips. Her old friend Benchley had that look about him the day she finally finished the job.

  
_Ah_ , she thinks, _that’s what she reminds me of._ Melanie watches her like she wants everyone to _hurt_ , even as her hand finds its way to Daisy’s thigh. Daisy wonders how much fun they can have until she’ll have to bury Melanie too.


End file.
